Ultrasonic fingerprint, finally becoming the standard configuration of flagship mobile phones in 2024?

Ray Technology

2024-05-11 11:55Posted in Guangdong science and technology field creators

In 2018, vivo released a special product - vivo X20 Plus UD, which is the world's first mobile phone equipped with ultrasonic fingerprint unlocking technology, and its unlocking, fingerprint recording speed and recognition area are several times that of mainstream under-screen fingerprints. Just when Xiao Lei thought that ultrasonic fingerprint would become the standard configuration of Android phones, it disappeared quietly.

(Image source: vivo official)

Although follow-up products like vivo, Meizu, and Samsung have also launched some products equipped with ultrasonic fingerprint technology, in terms of quantity, ultra-thin optical fingerprints and short-throw fingerprints are still the mainstream unlocking methods of today's smartphones.

So, what did the easy-to-use and practical ultrasonic fingerprint "go wrong" so that it has been "hidden so far" by many mobile phone manufacturers?

Why are ultrasonic fingerprints "hidden"?

In principle, the realization of ultrasonic fingerprint and mainstream optical fingerprint is almost the same, which uses the reflection imaging of screen light to identify other people's fingerprint information. When the user's hand presses to the screen, the reflected light returns to the sensor under the screen through the pixel gap, because the fingerprint itself is uneven, so the reflected light is also different, and then the algorithm compares the previous input fingerprint image to achieve accurate recognition.

(Image source: vivo official)

However, ultrasonic fingerprints can further use the unique pulse reflection characteristics of ultrasound waves to generate corresponding 3D depth data in real time, and it can measure the distance between the surface of the fingerprint and the skin, and determine the shape of the fingerprint pattern, so that whether it is clean, dirty, wet or located under the skin, the fingerprint can be accurately captured.

In simple terms, ultrasonic fingerprints verify the user's fingerprint in 3D, while ordinary optical fingerprints are 2D, and it is obvious that ultrasonic waves that can recognize three-dimensional topography fingerprints have higher security.

(Image source: Produced by Lei Technology)

At present, Qualcomm is the main supplier of ultrasonic fingerprint recognition technology, and after several iterations, its related solutions have also been upgraded to ultrasonic 3D wide-area fingerprint recognition, and even half-screen and two-finger recognition can be provided on some models. The wide-area ultrasonic fingerprint scheme adopted by the Meizu 21 that Lei Technology has evaluated before, users do not need to deliberately look for the recognition area when unlocking, but can successfully identify it up and down, left and right, and the efficiency of blind solution is greatly improved.

Secondly, the application of ultrasonic fingerprint technology can also be extended to areas such as payment security. Due to its high accuracy and security, ultrasonic fingerprint technology can be used for payment authentication and improve the information security of users. In the future, with the popularization of ultrasonic fingerprint technology, users can make payment operations with more confidence.

So back to the question at the beginning, why are there still not many manufacturers interested in such an easy-to-use and safe ultrasonic fingerprint six years after its birth?

The reason is actually very simple, just one word, expensive.

According to industry insiders, the cost price of a complete set of ultrasonic fingerprint modules on mobile phones is about 70 yuan, while the cost price of mainstream under-screen fingerprint modules is between 20-30 yuan. Secondly, its power consumption and heat generation are large, which has a certain impact on the battery life and heat dissipation of the mobile phone, and the mobile phone manufacturer needs to debug the new recognition algorithm for it separately. Not to mention that ultrasonic fingerprints also have certain requirements for the film of the mobile phone screen, and the higher thickness of the protective film (such as various tempered films) is likely to affect the recognition accuracy of ultrasonic fingerprints.

(Image source: Meizu official)

Readers who are familiar with the mobile phone market understand that today's mobile phone manufacturers are frantically fighting price wars in order to further expand their market share, you dare to sell 2999 for your new machine, I dare to sell 2899, and the production cost of manufacturers is getting lower and lower, and you can only choose to "save budget" in some details, such as the metal frame, telephoto lens, glass back, and ultra-thin fingerprints that are standard on many mid-range machines before, but they will not be seen in 2024.

This is also why in the first two years, most mobile phones on the market used ultra-thin fingerprints, and in 2023, more and more mobile phones and even flagship phones will start to use short-throw fingerprints with lower costs. Although the short-throw fingerprint is almost the same as the ultra-thin fingerprint in terms of recognition rate and security, with the increase of the internal battery and various modules of the mobile phone, the position of the short-throw fingerprint module has become more and more low, and the unlocking experience has seriously regressed.

2024, the year of the popularization of ultrasonic fingerprints?

Since there are users with pain points, there will naturally be manufacturers who will stand up to solve them. In fact, in the middle of last year, Goodix, a domestic company, has developed a "single-point ultrasonic fingerprint technology" with a simpler structure, lower cost but no reduction in security.

It can be guessed from the naming that the single-point ultrasonic fingerprint technology is subtracted on the basis of today's wide-area ultrasonic fingerprint, which reduces the recognition area of the fingerprint (most likely the same as the mainstream fingerprint recognition area today), but the recognition principle is completely the same as the wide-area ultrasonic fingerprint, so users do not have to worry about security and accuracy.

(Image source: Produced by Lei Technology)

Although this is also a solution, this makes Xiao Lei feel a little unnecessary, after all, the most important thing for ultrasonic fingerprint unlocking is not what unlocking speed, what is the fast entry of information, but a large area of recognition area. This is also something that only readers who have used wide-area ultrasonic fingerprints can understand.

But in any case, the single-point ultrasonic fingerprint technology is also an iterative upgrade of the ultra-thin optical screen fingerprint, at least there has been a lot of improvement in safety and accuracy, which is still quite positive. In addition, according to relevant sources, the top 5 mobile phone manufacturers in China have reached a supply relationship with Goodix in terms of single-point ultrasonic fingerprints, and perhaps ultrasonic fingerprint recognition technology will blossom everywhere in 2024.

Indeed, according to the revelations of industry insiders, the upcoming vivo X100 Ultra and the Xiaomi 15 series released in the second half of the year, Huawei Mate70 series, Honor Magic 7 series and other flagship phones will be equipped with single-point ultrasonic fingerprint technology as standard, and ultrasonic fingerprint will also become an important criterion for consumers to identify whether the product is a flagship machine.

Of course, with the popularization of ultrasonic fingerprint recognition in high-end models, manufacturers will inevitably further decentralize the technology to the mid-end market, but under the existing technical conditions, manufacturers also need to make trade-offs according to the actual situation of the product to ensure that the overall user experience is optimal. And this balance and choice is actually something that every manufacturer needs to face when building a product.

Some readers may also be curious, such a practical technology like ultrasonic fingerprint, is it good to use it in the follow-up iPhone? The answer is clearly no.

Starting with the iPhone X in 2018, Apple has taken a different path from fingerprint recognition with 3D facial recognition technology as its main biometric technology. Today, Apple's Face ID has been used for six generations, and a considerable amount of R&D resources and costs have been invested in facial recognition technology. If you really suddenly give up Face ID completely, or use Face ID + ultrasonic fingerprint technology, it will not only make the previous efforts "waste", but also may have all kinds of strange "bugs".

(Image source: Produced by Lei Technology)

Not to mention, today's Apple has deeply integrated facial recognition into various scenarios. Apple's AirPods, for example, use facial scanning to provide personalized spatial audio solutions, and if you want to switch to an under-display fingerprint recognition solution, you'll need to rebuild these differentiated apps. Therefore, at least in the short term, there is a high probability that Apple will not consider switching to fingerprint recognition on the iPhone.

Ultrasonic fingerprint is definitely a point that needs to be developed urgently for mobile phones, but why is ultrasonic fingerprint not popular? It is nothing more than the cost control of other manufacturers and the fact that users do not understand ultrasonic fingerprints, so there is no corresponding demand. When users become familiar with it and send out corresponding requirements, it is natural that more vendors will be willing to follow suit.

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